Businesses in today's fast-paced global marketplace strive to improve their productivity and profitability by providing their employees with access to business-critical applications and data at fixed locations within the workplace as well as at mobile locations. The popularity of web-based computing, combined with the need to expedite information access for mobile users, has spurred adoption of enterprise portals. Enterprise portals are company web sites that aggregate, personalize and serve applications, data and content to users, while offering management tools for organizing and using information more efficiently. In some companies, portals have replaced traditional desktop software with browser-based access to a virtual workplace that is easy to use, convenient and ubiquitous. Companies that implement portals also benefit from a fast return on investment due to increased worker productivity and greater efficiency in their information technology infrastructure.
True desktop software replacement requires that a portal offer a full complement of information resources. Business applications are, arguably, the most vital information resource that workers need to access. Business applications also typically represent a major investment, and often a competitive advantage, which must not be lost when moving to web-based systems. From the standpoint of productivity, application access via the portal is needed so that users are not forced to switch back and forth between the browser and the desktop to do their work. With a split browser/desktop system, it is more difficult to locate and coordinate material from various sources. Users are also typically tied to the desktop device because it provides key applications that may not be accessible via the browser.
These business drivers provide compelling motivation to include existing and upcoming applications in portal implementations. However, few applications have been developed specifically for web-based delivery and those that have often provide reduced functionality as compared to their equivalent desktop applications. Although it is possible to use existing applications in a portal by re-engineering them for web publication using HTML, scripting, Java™ and other proprietary means, this approach is time-consuming and expensive and may delay portal implementation. Likewise, such implementations may experience reduced functionality and/or may not be feasible because the “download and run” model of application execution is too resource-intensive.
Accordingly, methods and systems are desired that enable efficient deployment of legacy applications in enterprise portals without undertaking expensive development efforts that may be marginally effective and which dilute the return on investment of the portal.